Loop (9 page)

As I tilted my head, the grip on my arm loosened. I turned and found myself staring into the face of, well, I had no idea who it was. But he wasn’t hard on the eyes. Apparently, he’d just gotten out of the shower. He rubbed a towel slowly against his damp hair. Even with his muscles relaxed, they strained against his thin shirt.

Ba-da-bing.
The Mastersons never mentioned an older son. Nephew? Live-in male model?

He let go of my wrist and took a few steps back. I fumbled to open Mimi’s QuantCom and braced for an emergency fade.

“Bree. It’s … it’s you.”

“How do you know my—?”

Before I had a chance to finish, the stranger closed the space between us with a single stride. He crushed me to his broad chest even as I tried to push him away. He released me long enough to catch my breath. And it was good he did, because the next thing I knew warm lips were pressed against mine, kissing them with a frantic, almost desperate energy. He clutched my hand in his, circling it around his waist. His lips calmed into a gentle rhythm. The kiss wasn’t altogether unpleasant. It
was
altogether unexpected.

I reared back and slapped him. Hard.

“What was that for?” He rubbed the spot where I hit his cheek. A rosy mark lingered.

“For kissing me, what do you think?” I took another step back and held my hand against the doorknob, ready to bolt if he so much as flinched in my direction again. “Who are you?”

Confusion spread across his face. “What are you talking about, Bree?”

“How do you know my name?”

“How do I—?” His lips turned up in an uncertain smile. “It’s me. Finn.”

It wasn’t possible. Had I undershot it by that much? I hadn’t looked that closely at the date.

No,
said an argumentative little voice in my mind
, Finn has carrot red hair and would get knocked sideways by a strong puff of wind. This guy has sun-kissed auburn waves and, oh my, the muscles and is a good kiss—… no, no, no, no, no.

He leaned forward and rubbed my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

I couldn’t turn the door handle fast enough. I sprinted up the driveway, running where exactly I’d no idea. The person who claimed to be Finn ran after me but kept a steady distance between us. When I realized I wasn’t gaining any ground and he wasn’t losing any, I gave up and turned to face him.

He lifted his hands in surrender. “Look, sweetie, I’m kind of confused right now, too.”

Sweetie?
My nostrils flared.

He stepped away and lowered his voice: “Why don’t we go back in the house?”

This was insane. My thumb circled the edge of my Com, edging closer and closer to the emergency fade trigger.

“Whoa, don’t do anything rash,” he said.

I looked down at my Com. “How do you know what I’m about to do?”

“You have that about-to-fade look in your eye,” he said.

His comment must have made my look grow worse, because he took a step back. “Just calm down. We’ll talk out here.”

“Okay. Talk.”

He gnawed on his lower lip, and the small movement jolted a memory in me. Finn had done the same thing while we were out scouring the beach. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to get me to lower the QuantCom.

“When is the last time you remember seeing me? Seeing … Finn?” he asked.

“A couple days ago. In your kitchen. When he … you called me a lunatic.”

“A couple days?” His face fell.

“How long has it been for you?”

“Three years.”

Dang it, Wyck.
I was supposed to have arrived three months out from my original mission date. He’d missed it by
three years
? I looked Finn up and down. That would make him around eighteen years old. Looked about right. There went any chance of getting Leto’s delivery back. I was in a blarkload of trouble.

“You don’t remember calling me a lunatic?” I asked.

“No, I do. I’m—” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. That was me at my lowest. I didn’t know what I was saying.”

“My turn,” I said. “Why did you kiss me?”

“I was happy to see you.”

“In the future, try this one on for size: ‘Hi, Bree. So good to see you. Did you have a nice Shift?’” I held out my arm in a mock handshake.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

A gust of wind knocked me off balance. It blew the front door against the house with a bang. “Where’s your Haven Beacon?” I asked.

“Someone isn’t waiting her turn.” Finn chuckled in a way that came out almost a growl.

“
Someone
is about to disappear if she doesn’t get answers.”

“Fine. I took it down to keep a lower profile. For protection.”

“Protection against what?”

“I … don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“No. You wouldn’t tell me.”

“What are you talking about? What the blark’s going on?” My confusion tripped over a fine line into fear.

“Bree, let’s go inside and I’ll explain everything that I can. Trust me.”

“Great. Let me get this all straight. You’ve gone from runty toy collector to some kind of suave, paranoid recluse and you want me to traipse into your little trap and
trust
you?

“What are you even trying to protect? A burglar could rob you blind and your dad can go back a few hundred years and invest, like, a penny. You’d get your millions back. Who knows? Maybe you wouldn’t even have to proposition unsuspecting time travelers. You could ask a girl out on a proper date and wait until the end of it to kiss her against her will.”

My venting brought no relief from the unanswered questions. Instead frustration sizzled through my veins like an electric current. Still, I jutted my jaw in defiance. Finn cocked his head to the side, closed the space between us in three giant steps, and snatched away my QuantCom.

“All right. We’ll do this the hard way.” He hoisted me over his shoulder and marched back to the house. I could have screamed. Judging by the lack of cars in the neighboring driveway, there was no point. I spent my energy trying to grab my Com, but by the time I had almost wriggled out of his grasp we were in his living room. He dumped me unceremoniously on the couch and slouched into a love seat opposite it.

“Let’s start over. Hi, Bree. So good to see you. Did you have a nice Shift?”

I crossed my arms and glared at him.

He leaned forward, and his voice took on the same intensity as when he first yanked me in the doorway. “Look, it’s unfortunate that you had a recent run-in with an arrogant, ignorant prat whose world had just shattered. I was scared then.” He leaned closer, perching on the edge of the couch, until I could feel the warmth of his breath on my face.

“I’m not scared anymore,” he said.

I pulled my knees up to my chest. “Good for you. What changed your mind so suddenly?”

His expression darkened. “I decided what I was fighting for.”

“Which is?”

“You.”

chapter 7

THE ROOM WENT SILENT
save for a giant grandfather clock ticking away in the corner. The minute hand clicked to the 3, and a bird shot out the front.
Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo.

Dang straight
. I snorted. “Me?”

He leaned back in his seat. “You.”

“Why would you fight for
me
?”

“Because you asked me to.”

“What are you talking about? We spent, like, four waking hours together. Two of which you spent whining.”

Finn squirmed and avoided my gaze. He pulled at a thread on the arm of his chair.

“What are you hiding?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“No, it’s something. It’s—” I stiffened and leaned as far from Finn as possible. The way he spoke to me. Looked at me.
Kissed me.
I forced a lump down my throat. “How many waking hours have we spent together?”

Finn kept his mouth shut and stared straight ahead.

“How many?” The words slid off my tongue like melting ice.

Finn ran his fingers through his hair and shook his head. “Obviously, I haven’t spent any time with
you
. But I will. I don’t know when you’re coming back, though. I mean ‘when’ for you. I know when it was for me.” With each “when,” he scooted closer and closer until the tips of our knees touched.

A herd of thoughts thundered through my mind.

“Stop. Just stop.” I hugged a pillow to my chest. “Start from the beginning.”

“There’s not much to tell until a year ago,” said Finn. “That’s when you—”

“Not me.” We needed to get that straight right up front. “Future Me.”

“That’s when Future You showed up out of the blue and asked for my help.”

“Help with what?” If he couldn’t hand over Leto’s device this trip, why on earth would I risk sneaking back again?

Finn hesitated and looked at the door. “I can’t really tell you anything about the future.”

“
You
can’t tell
me
anything about the future? Oh, that is … no. No.
I
can’t tell
you
anything about the future.” Except apparently I already had. “Tell me what I told you.”

“Maybe we should wait until my parents get home to talk about this.”

“Talk now.”

“You asked me to do something for you, and I agreed to do it. That’s all.”

“If that’s all, then why did you kiss me?” I asked. “And why am I sitting here now?”

For the first time since I had arrived, Finn’s cool cracked. He gazed away at the foyer, as if retracing our steps, then turned back to me. “Why
are
you sitting here now?”

Oh, yeah. I had come to him.

“That’s none of your business.”

“Bree.” The way he said my name—a combination of Mimi’s overexuberant worry and my mom’s tender familiarity—it bugged me. “This is me you’re talking to. What do you need?”

“Fine. You have something of mine, and I need it back.”

“Something … futuristic?”

“Yes!”

“Something that, say, fell out of your shoe?”

“Yes, yes, yes.” Now we were getting somewhere.

“Yeah, I don’t have it anymore.”

“What?” I clawed my hands into the chair to keep from lunging over and strangling him.

“You came and got it.”

“Exactly.”

“No.
You
came and got it. Future You. You left a note that said you needed it back.”

“But … I…” My voice trailed off. That didn’t make any sense. At all.

I needed that gadget and I needed answers.

But first, I needed my QuantCom back.

“Umm, Finn.” I lowered my voice to a sultry whisper. The pillow I held fell to the floor as I edged forward. My leg brushed against his. “Could you do me a favor?”

Finn leaned in and reached to put his hands on my knees. “Anything.”

Perfect.

I pounced before he had a chance to figure out what was going on. He’d had the foresight to zip the QuantCom in his cargo pants pocket, so it wasn’t as easy to grab as I thought it would be. And I’d never been good with zippers. Again, Finn matched my every move before I made it. At first, he laughed, treating my attack like a playful wrestling match. It didn’t take much pocket grabbing for him to figure out what was going on, though.

“Stop.” He batted my hand away like I was a kitten tussling a ball of yarn. “You might hurt yourself.”

Puma claws came out, and the next thing I knew I was rolling on the ground with a still-chuckling Finn. He didn’t fight hard, but he also didn’t fight fair. At one point, Finn clasped both my hands in one of his and tickled me. I wriggled on top of him and managed to hold down his wrist long enough to get him to stop tickling. I pinned his other hand down with my knee while I unzipped the pocket with my teeth.

Finn burst out laughing. “What are you doing?”

“I … trine … to … reesh … my…” But I didn’t finish my thought. My mouth fell open when I noticed two people standing in the kitchen doorway staring at us, their mouths agape as well.

“Get a room,” said a slightly taller, no longer gangly, definitely still-sassy Georgie.

“Get a life,” answered Finn, and sat up. I scrambled off him but stayed within grabbing distance of his pocket.

Georgie stuck out her tongue at Finn; then before I could brace myself she ran over and tackled me in a hug.

“It’s about time you showed up,” she said. “There’s this cute dress I want you to look at later, tell me how historically accurate it would be. I met this guy in the 1920s. So squeeworthy. And well, let’s just say that every time I think about him…” She paused for dramatic effect and gave me a look like I was in on some kind of inside joke. “… I’m all
whoosh
!”

“I, uhh…”

Charlotte waved at me. “We weren’t expecting you! Of course, when are we? How are things going?”

“Umm, fine. I guess.” A polite lie, but I didn’t really feel like explaining the vengeful smuggler who was after me.

“No. How are
things
going?” She lowered her head and did everything but say the word “wink” out loud.

“Huh?”

“Mom,” Finn said, “Bree’s not—”

“Did Finn not offer you anything to drink?” Charlotte looked at the coffee table and tsked. “Sun tea’s steeping, but it’ll be an hour or so.”

“I’ll take a Coke,” said Georgie.

“You know where the fridge is.”

“Why does Bree get special treatment?” Georgie whined. “She’s practically a member of—”

Finn exploded into a massive coughing fit. Charlotte swooped down to check on her choking son, which only exacerbated Georgie’s snit.

“Oh, come on, he’s pretending.” Georgie tossed her hair over her shoulder. “I think I’m heading out.”

“Oh, no, you’re not,” said her mom. “Bree just got here.”

“I’ll see her later. Sorry. Can’t help it.”

“You most certainly can,” said Charlotte, “Do not, I repeat, do not leave this—”

But she was talking to a patch of air.

Guess Georgie’s gene had kicked in.

Charlotte plopped on the couch.

“My only consolation in life is that someday the Lord will smite her with a teenage daughter as feisty as she is. If only Dad were here. Sometimes he can go after her. You are staying for dinner, Bree.” It came out more command than question. “Oh and, Finn, Aunt Lisa dropped in for the pony swim, so set two extra plates.”